BB Development Blog

Death

General Updates, Roleplay, Uncategorized No Responses »

May 172012

It’s been an interesting past month in terms of our development. We’ve not been too focused this past month on RP as we’ve had a few other things to complete. All the developers are just sorting a few life things out the moment (exams, education, business) however development is still slowly chugging along and I’m going to explain how death works in Roleplay.

In your typical roleplay gamemode you die, sometimes accept some terrible thing about “NLR” and get straight back to whatever you were doing. This has various problems and in most servers causes some form of havoc. The typical issues are -

Players return to their location and continue what they were doing.
Players return to their location, kill the person and then continue what they were doing.
Players hunt down the player that killed them, kill them, return to their location and continue what they were doing.

Because of the situations listed above you end up with a sort of infinite loop where the affected players end up continually doing this and it just ends up as pure chaos. The only way this loop is broken is when an Admin steps in and attempts to stop it from going any further (which in itself can lead to more issues).

To counter this issue the entire premise around death has been changed.

Instead of just respawning and getting on with what you were doing, your character becomes locked. When a character becomes locked you are unable to spawn as them or perform any actions with them, including deleting that character. The unlock timers differ depending on how you die, however a characters death will be minimum 20 minutes (subjective to change). This gives the player time to cool off and it actually allows for the culprit(s) to get away!

The beauty of the system is that even if the player logs onto another character they’re not really going to be able to get back there and identify the killer(s) due to the identification system in Roleplay (in which you must know the person to see their name) so a huge part of the issue is outright eliminated. Plus if this occurs in the city then police are going to be swarming all over it attempting to defuse the situation and work out what went wrong.

However there is a risk this system could go completely wrong if we’re not careful with the distribution of offensive weapons which will lead to an interesting blog post for another day.

Discussion Thread: http://www.bbroleplay.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?7884-Death&p=103818#post103818

Perks and Donations

Roleplay, Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 272012

I’ve had some questions about donations andd how platinum / advanced works with the RP gamemode. It’s fairly straightforwards however it seems somewhere there’s confusion amongst several members.

First of all Platinum is for the more “arcadey” gamemodes. So this is for Deathrun, Surf, Zombie Escape and so on. The idea behind this is that it’s a one time perk that allows the user to have some minor benefits as a way of saying thank you for donating. They can donate more should they wish but otherwise it’s a one time, for life donation. Any gamemodes that come out that are platinum based will automatically come with benefits (should there be any).

Advanced is more of a subscription based micro-transaction with a slight twist.

My attitude over the years has shifted from giving outright benefits to players to that of very minor benefits or cosmetic changes. I’m against the whole “pay 2 win” thing and I find it incredibly annoying when games effectively lock me out of content just because they want me to pay some horrible conversion rate to their game points (and then you’re always stiffed because you get 500 points, but the content is like 300 points each). So the general idea is that we give you something in return that will benefit you, but it won’t outright dominate players that simply aren’t donating.

However this doesn’t apply too well to those that bought perks all those years ago back in [BB] Classic (RP08). That’s right, we haven’t forgotten you (infact we have the entire database of every single perk that people bought) and we expect to give these people a return on what they donated for.

A quick reminder on the perks -

Custom Model	Allowed for a custom player model for your character
Super Inventory	+20 Inventory slots
Enhanced Druglabs	Druglabs lasted 300% longer
Mr Moneybags	Cash income from salary and druglabs were increased by 10%
Keypad Hacker	Free keypad hacker (tradable)
Radio	Free Radio (tradable)
Reserved Slot Access	Exactly what it says
Props 20 / 40	An extra 20 / 40 props (stackable)

All of those are going to be translated into perks for those that donated and these will vary between single characters and account-wide perks.

Perk	Description	Single use / Multiple	Flags
Smart Pick	Can pick low tier doors, unbreakable.	Single Character	Tradable, Stealable, Unbreakable
Basic Radio	Gives you a basic radio	Single Character	Tradable
Opulent Storage	Additional storage which lets you carry more items that are weightless!	Single Character	Non-tradable, Undroppable
Sturdy Contraptions	Objects take 20% more damage to break	Multiple Character	Non-tradable
Golden Days	One month of advanced for the account	Multiple Character	N/A
Mr Moneybags	Start with additional 5k	Single Character	N/A
Subsidiary Equipment	Start with a Tent	Single Character	Tradable.

The perks above aren’t quite in order but you can probably match them up. We may bring out perks for new users or reuse a couple of the ones above however for now the above perks are set in stone for old users.

We’re aware that various people are also wanting to know what Advanced players get, so here’s the current list of benefits that you would gain for $5 (per month).

Reserved Slot
Base increase to all stats by 20%
Advanced Storebox in the bank
Upon death one item (or stack) is sent to the bank assuming there is space in the main account (illegal items are not affected by this).
Equal benefits to platinums in Lobby.
Access to Advanced Forums
Get Advanced title ([A])
Access to the Advanced wardrobe (more skins)
Any future Advanced features will be applied to all current Advanced players.

We’re aware that they do pale in comparison to the original RP08 / 09 perks (Physgun, props, no-vote police) but this gamemode fundamentally functions in a different way in it’s approach to everything. They’re especially not too powerful which means that non Advanced users aren’t going to feel dominated every time someone comes over and whacks them with a prop.

A topic I never really wanted to broach was donatable money. I don’t really want to have people buy money however I believe we have come up with a solution on how to manage it.

There will be a “pot” of currency available each day or so. This pot will scale with the economy as so it doesn’t become values too high or too little. The difference here however is that once the money in the pot is gone, no one else can donate for money until it has been refilled, which will happen randomly 24-48 hours after the pot has hit a certain “low” threshold. This should hopefully regulate the economy and prevent people from becoming rich with no effort.

The pricing will start off at $1.50 per 500 currency, Minimum of 1000 currency.

The only reason we’re even doing this is to prevent some sort of real world – ingame world conversion happening where people will gladly start swapping money / games for ingame cash (which did happen before). This way we’re (hopefully) able to regulate it and prevent anyone from losing their money.

Thread Forum Post: http://www.bbroleplay.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?7876-Perks-and-Donations&p=103617

McDonalds burger buns (pt2)

General Updates, Roleplay, Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 182012

Before you read: If you’re not good with economies, just stick to digging rocks when RP is released, you might find it easier just being a rock seller.

So I provided a very rough guideline as to how a basic McDonalds burger bun goes from the farm, to being sorted and then becoming flour. However I never specified on how this will be implemented into Roleplay itself.

To break the ice I’ll say it here, EVE Online annoys me. The fact I have to wait days and then log off for skills to complete is plain boring. Sure it frees up your time but I don’t exactly want to play a game where I do one or two things, then bugger off. It’s effectively (without using ISK) paying to have the game play it for you. Yes I’m aware there’s other things in EVE but when it comes down to produce and the economy, it’s pretty boring. I have no desire to make players to wait 2-3 weeks just so they have a chance of getting enough of a certain type of wheat to efficiently grind it. This isn’t fun to see nor is it fun for the player to interact with.

Instead, I would rather (artificially) make it difficult so that the amount of crop yielded from some wheat is significantly lower initially, especially when everyone is just starting out. As time goes on your (lets say for now) farming skill will increase over time as you continue to grow produce and collect it. This specifically means two things;

Your character will naturally become better at something that you have actively been working on. You’re actually rewarded for time spent (similar to other games) doing a specific task
You gain more produce as a result of your skills \o/

It’s not the most exciting example ever but it does show the basics behind the start of a system.

However this is where things start to get interesting.
So now you have a choice in terms of what you actually do with the wheat. You can either use it to make various foodstuffs thus honing your skills further in another area and then sell the final product on or you could just sell the wheat directly on.

It’s a small predicament because you can either effectively specialize yourself in terms of the market and be the biggest seed of burger buns or you could instead just sell that wheat on to a supplier. But which choice should you take? On one hand you can grow to become some sort of baker, supplying the residents of <REDACTED> with glorious food and possibly becoming renowned for such talent, or you could attempt to become some sort of trader with an eye for the market, buying low, selling high and effectively living the good life with a reasonable amount of work.

With that, you have the system in RP. Itemization and markets are flexible to the extent that with crafting you can effectively choose your path in terms of what you make and become. You’re going to have buying and selling of goods across various levels from people trading raw materials to people then using these materials to create other goods to further sell on to other players and thus the grand market is born.

So in short, that’s how a burger bun can climb on top of a pattie.

Discussion Thread: http://www.bbroleplay.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?7871-McDonalds-burger-buns-(pt2)

[BB] Steam Group

General Updates, Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 172012

It’s come to my attention that a few people are actually in the old [BB]RP group.

Please join the new one so you get all the latest updates - http://steamcommunity.com/groups/BB_Servers

McDonalds burger buns and a few other (minor) things. (pt1)

General Updates, Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 172012

I’ll mention it now that we’ll be attempting to update the blog in more bitesized chunks. Apparently people are enjoying the articles posted here however the frequency of it is a bit low seeing as we tend to end up writing large posts. Please leave a comment or feedback though if you enjoy / disagree / whatever with things in this blog. At the end of the day we want this to be an enjoyable experience for everyone so without some form of feedback it could (at times) end up skewed.

Gathering is a staple activity in our world of today, spanning millions / billions of various currencies in different industries. Be it a child collecting pebbles on a beach to a farmer actively growing and collecting wheat it’s there in our daily lives yet many people actually never think about the complexities that actually goes into the production line of products. To elaborate on how far this really goes, lets break it down with your average McDonalds burger bun.

Burger Buns / Burger Bread (whichever you prefer)
Wheat grown by farmer -> Picked via combine harvester (gathering occurs here) ->(sold on and) Sent to a flour mill where it’s graded and kept until it’s ground into flour -> When wheat is required, it goes through a lengthy purification process that in itself is a system -> The wheat is finally ground (and in some cases enriched) -> The flour is then packed into various containers (depending on the market and type of flour) -> Flour goes through basic health & safety / QC -> Any byproducts / waste is either destroyed or reused (such as Bran, which is a byproduct). -> Shipped off to factories to then be processed.

I’ll pause the production line here just so we can actually look at how elaborate this process is; that’s 9 steps which for the sake of this blog I’ve actually condensed quite heavily and as a result we can see just for a burger bun this is no simple process. Obviously McDonalds don’t really have any control over the process at this point (unless they own the farms which I don’t believe they do). That burger bun which isn’t even a bun yet has probably gone through a process which has taken about 2-3 weeks.

At this point the wheat will be introduced into a mixture (consisting of water, sugar, salt and your staples to making buns / bread) until the mixture is ready and is then squirted out of the funnel, sent along a basic conveyor belt to have seeds dropped on it (usually the top of the bun is glazed so the seeds won’t drop off) followed by being thrown into a large container, sorted so there’s two halves and then they’re frozen, ready to be shipped to the local McDonalds store (yay frozen food).

I’m not going to go through every single component of how certain foods are made, that you should have learned when you were eight however it does show how lengthy even a basic burger bun can be to make.

Tomorrow I’ll actually get into how this process will affect Roleplay and how this will affect any industry that does crop up.

Discussion Thread: http://www.bbroleplay.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?7868-McDonalds-burger-buns-and-a-few-other-(minor)-things-(pt1)

Splurgenshitter.

Lobby, Uncategorized 1 Response »

Apr 152012

(right click -> Open image in new tab)
Cinema

Cube!

Development, Lobby, Uncategorized 1 Response »

Apr 022012

A quick video to let you know we’re not just sat on our laurels!

Attn: Roleplay Beta Invites

General Updates No Responses »

Mar 102012

On a fairly regular basis I get the occasional PM from forum users with about 1-5 posts saying they’re interested in the RP Beta and they’re generally asking what it takes to get in. These members have usually disappeared from [BB] when something slightly flashier came out or simply didn’t care about the community side of things so I figured I would put up a small post clearing a few things up.

At the end of the day the people that are most likely to get invites are the ones that actually you know, stuck with the community through the thick and thin trying to offer support in various ways. Why do you, that person that remembered about us on the slight off-chance deserve to receive an invite? How would that be fair to the people that have stuck around and that actually have knowledge of what is going on and what is somewhat expected of them?

If you want a possible invite in the future then actually try to integrate with the community and learn the ropes, otherwise you’re the last person who will be receiving anything.

The Lobby Server

Development, General Updates, Lobby, Uncategorized 3 Responses »

Feb 272012

It’s a bit of a well-known secret now (Due to Teddi + Mumble) that we’re going to have a Lobby server for the new Gmod 13 update. The idea behind this is that it will be a place to chill (Amongst other things I will cover) as well as a quick and easy gateway into our many servers.
The idea for a Lobby was one Teddi and I discussed over a year ago, however we really had no justification or reason to have one at the time and so it was shelved.

The reason it has come about this time was primarily due to Cube / Escape. Round times could run for 30 minutes +, and so having people die on that and then wait 30 minutes for the next round as unfeasible. Instead, we’re going to have 3 servers which are controlled from the lobby, this means that once people die, they can either spectate, or go back to the Lobby and attempt to join another Cube server (There’s more to it than this, but this post is mainly about the lobby).

So, what’s going to be so good about our Lobby (AKA, what are you ripping off from other servers?)
It’s not only going to be a place to chill, but it’s going to have the previously mentioned server portals, Cinema’s, Deathmatch area, Casino, Plat Lounge and a Theatre / dining hall.

Server Portals – As previously mentioned, this will be a gateway to all our other BB servers, such as TTT, Cube, DR and ZE. RP however will be a separate entity from the Lobby.

Deathmatch Zone – Having an Argument with someone and everyone fed up with you spamming chat? Or just feel like capping some bitches? Then go down to our large Deathmatch Arena where you can satisfy those urges! There will be gun, violence and toilets to punt at people!

Cinema’s – Here you will be able to queue up Video’s from Youtube so you can show everyone your Epic MW3 headshot montage with some drum and bass over it! A ‘Multiplayer Youtube’ if you’re so inclined!

Theatre / Dining Hall – here you can just chill, buy a beer or what the on stage performances (Joke night anyone?).

Casino – Somewhere for you to burn all those excess cubes (Or make a fortune) whilst the DR Store has been down!

Plat Lounge – What to feel special and look down on people? Well, from here, you can! Your own little plat area where you can feel like that $15’s was actually almost worth it!

Well, that’s a fair bit of text and as pictures speak a thousand words, here are some!
lol
lol
lol
lol
(P.S. We promise we’ll get back to RP after this!)

Edit by Teddi:
Because Killermon forgot to add something relating to music -

Media Update tomorrow.

Uncategorized No Responses »

Feb 272012

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